


Bloody Knuckles, Bloody Nose

by Villainyandgoodcheekbones



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen, Les Mis AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-13
Updated: 2013-03-13
Packaged: 2017-12-05 04:06:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/718702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Villainyandgoodcheekbones/pseuds/Villainyandgoodcheekbones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows, he’s just Bahorel, just riots and revels and talking too loud and too much, the man to offer to break kneecaps when somebody’s giving you shit, the guy you go to when you don't want to think anymore. He knows. He knows, and it’s fine, it’s okay, it’s just that sometimes it isn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bloody Knuckles, Bloody Nose

He’s stronger than he looks, and that should terrify people, and it does terrify people, but he’s smarter than he looks too, and that should terrify them even more, but somehow it never does. He’s smart enough to know what his place is.

Enjolras is their chief and Combeferre is their guide and Courfyerac is the bright warm center they all revolve around.  Joly will wince and whimper at the blood, but patch up them anyway when he comes in bloody, leaning on a battered Grantaire, and Bossuet might be the best of all them, the whole damn universe can’t keep him down.  Feuilly puts them all to shame, red hair and cigarettes and clawing up from nothing but not holding it against anybody, and Jehan reminds everybody that there is still good, there are still beautiful things and Grantaire reminds everybody that it’s not gonna be that fucking easy and even _that’s_ worth something.

Him? He knows, he’s just Bahorel, just riots and revels and talking too loud and too much, the man to offer to break kneecaps when somebody’s giving you shit, the guy you go to when you don't want to think anymore. He knows. He knows, and it’s fine, it’s okay, it’s just that sometimes it isn’t.

Sometimes it just isn’t, nights where he just wants to crawl screaming out of his skin, _I can’t do this, I can’t be this and if I can’t then what the fuck am I?_ And he tries, he goes out, comes back, bloody knuckles, bloody nose, red all over and tasting copper in his mouth and it’s not enough. It’s just not enough. So he goes out again, sends a text to say he won’t be back (he’s smarter than he looks, he knows people worry sometimes) and tries and tries and tries. But he’s stronger than he looks, too, and when it’s over, he’ll have bruises on his hands and his ribs and all along his hips and the hollows of his back, but he’ll still be himself.

He could tell them, he could tell Combeferre or Enjolras or Courfeyrac or Jehan and he knows that. But he can’t, not really. He couldn’t tell them, or Feuilly, or Grantaire, because that’s not what you do to the people you care about, you don’t give them more to carry.  Not when they have enough to carry on their own, not when you should be, not when you _are_ strong enough to bear it by yourself. He’s the strongman, ripper of paving stones and smasher of windows and heads, impervious, that’s his place, he knows, he can deal. Fuck it, he _can._

Bloody knuckles, bloody nose, and he looks like one of Feuilly’s canvases, one of Grantaire’s bottles, blue and black and red and they’ll fade to brown and green and yellow in a few days and he’ll be _fine._

So he’s back before it gets light, sitting smoking and asking if Feuilly can taste that he bled into the coffee, laughing when Feuilly throws a towel at his face and Bahorel keeps his hands out of sight because he’s smarter then he looks.

He’ll be fine.


End file.
